[snip]

Stella after her fun time in sick bay walked the halls toward the lift that would take her to the captains’ office. She thought about that poor girl Kate that she had met in sick bay. It was as obvious as the nose on your face that she had it bad for that Dr. Hunter. But he just treated Kate as if she were a piece of office furniture! It was a shame. That Miss Kate was cute too. She was a soft-spoken girl with a big heart and a good mind. She had to wonder at why Hunter didn’t like her. Kate would be a fine catch for anyone.

Stella then lapsed from thought into whistling a little tune until the lift stopped. She then stepped off of the lift and walked to the captain’s door where she ran a hand back through her hair and pressed the buzzer on the door. She had a bad case of the hebee - jeebees . This was her first assignment to a ship and this fellow was her first captain. What was it that Hunter fellow had said? Oh yeah don’t call him honey.

Captain Glen had only recently returned from a landing party, to an abandoned village on the dusty planet’s surface. He is in his sonic shower cubicle when the door chimes. He quickly grabs a towel and comes out of the cubicle, giving his hair a rub as he does. He is about to call for the person to come in, when he thinks that he ought to put some clothes on first. That will take too long. He makes a towel body wrap so that he continue getting ready without having to put his clothes on just yet.

“Just one minute!” Glen says.

Stella rubbed her eyes and yawned as she waited for permission to enter. She was nervous about meeting the CO. That Hunter fellow had made the CO sound like one of those people that were hard to get along with. And that was certainly not the sort of person that Stella could get along with easily. Despite this though she had made up her mind to try harder and try not to let SO much of her personality come out.

Glen quickly towelled down some more and put on some trousers before he called “Okay, enter!” The hair on his head was still wet, and his bare, hairy chest was still uncovered and his wet skin glistened in the lowered light of the room. He had chosen to embrace his body’s active, thriving follicles rather than to groom and wax them. Without his shirt on, Glen’s developed upper body muscles were more visible; his obliques, glutes, abdominals, and especially his biceps, and triceps.

Stella entered her eyes glued to a data pad which was full of her to do things. She’d been very busy and was hoping to be done very soon, so that if nothing else she could get out of these darn boots! She raised her head then and smiled as she began to speak. ” Hello Captain Glenn, I’m .. ” Her voice seemed to go away leaving her to stand there breathless for a moment. She blushed a crimson color. Yes it was that bad she could actually feel the color of her face. She thought to herself (Please don’t let me say Oh my I think I have the vapors!)

Coming from a family in which she was the only girl among four brothers she was more than used to the male body. Especially in the summertime when her brothers would shuck off all their clothes and go wallowing around in an empty crayfish pond out behind her parents’ house.

She calmed herself though as she reminded herself that this was her CO not one of her rascally mud-covered brothers. She caught her breath and brought her hand to her face in an attempt to cover the blush. ” Oh ..um I’m sorry Captain.” She began slowly as she obviously went fishing for words. ” I can come back later I didn’t know you were in a state of undress!”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I thought you were… er…” Glen was going to say Faith, his Yeoman, but despite her being his niece that wouldn’t have sounded quite right either. It’s just that Ginger, my cat has gone missing, and Faith usually knows where the old fleabag has got to, he thought. “…er …someone else! Just give me a moment to put a shirt on and I’ll be with you in a second!”

Glen put on a shirt and ran a comb through his hair, then he was ready. “I’m sorry that I embarrassed you… but you have me at a disadvantage really… I’m expecting a new Helm and a new XO, but I’m afraid I haven’t been notified about a new Communications Officer… but then I’ve been too busy to read my messages. …and that’s probably because I don’t have a Communications Officer and my Yeoman seems to have gone missing!”

Glen knew that Faith was now deep into studying for her Starfleet Medical application, but it seemed odd that both her and Ginger couldn’t be found.

“My cat is also missing,” Glen said. “It’s a large and old ginger-coloured tabby. If you see it please let me know. Anyway, down to business. I make it a policy to meet every new officer and crewmember who joins the Merri. It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go!”

• Glen, CO